The present invention relates to fabric and machinery for handling fabric. More particularly, the present invention relates to devices and methods for marking areas of a fabric near its edge for denoting defects and the like. The fabric may be knitted, woven or non-woven.
As is well known, when fabric is constructed on a loom, the creation of some localized defects in the fabric is inevitable. In some applications the fabric is wound on a roll as it may be necessary to identify the locations of the defects in the roll.
After finishing, the fabric is unwound from one roll and rolled onto another roll of a conventional inspection machine. A substantial portion of the fabric between the two rolls is open for inspection. An inspector, observing the fabric passing by on the inspection machine, affixes a marker near the edge of the fabric to indicate the lengthwise dimension on the fabric corresponding to the locations of defects. In order to permit the inspector to affix a marker to the fabric, the motion of the fabric must be stopped until the marking operation is completed. The need to stop the fabric for marking, and the substantial time required for the inspector to affix each marker, reduce the productivity of the inspector and inspection machine.